newbie to suse

Hi I have following questions,
1. is there any tool like apt-get or better to use in Suse-9
2. Using above tool/app one should be able to install fail2ban package ( after adding corresponding sources atleast)
3.
Whenever a user/root tries to change password using passwd command,
user receive this
"Password will be truncated to 8 characters"
abcd@test450:~> passwd
Changing password for abcd.
Old Password:
New password:
Password will be truncated to 8 characters
Re-enter new password:
Sorry, passwords do not match.
Above works only if password is less than 8 Characters.
Is there any way to allow passwords with more than 8 characters.
Does Suse OS employ different authentication policies by default ? I never had such an issue on other linux OSs while using passwd command
Thanks in advance

For question 3 the answer is: you have enabled LDAP (Light Directory Access Protocol). I done the same thing. You need to shutdown LDAP and change the setting, which I do not remember at the moment, so that you are using local passwords; PAM. I will return and if you have not solved this then I will look it up. As for apt-get Suse uses yast and yast2. You can install yum if you like it is on the list of available programs. It is a redhat style instead of a debian style works about the same.
Good luck

I made a mistake on the password situation. The directions I gave you work on SLES 10 not 9. Here are the right directions. This will be using Yast. Select Yast it will ask for a password, root password. Type in your root password. Then select Security and Users then Security Settings. You will get a new window that has a box with the level 1, level 2, level 3, below them is a button that says Details select it. You will get a new window that says Password Setting. In this window you can change the number of significant characters for you password. Advance the number to what you wish it to be, it is preset at 8. Below that is more configurable settings you can use if you choose. They are easy to understand so good luck and sorry about the incorrect info

Answer to your questions:
1. There is no apt-get program in suse 9.2.
2. If you do not want to use Yast program to handle the installation, you can use rpm to do the installation. You can use man program to get infomation about rpm.
3. If passwd do not accepts password more than 8 characters, that is because the password (string) is more the required length.
Check out man page for passwd command.
Regards,
Ilesanmi
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